How Much To Charge for a Website?
We put together some realistic figures on how much to charge for a website, based on initial work and maintenance.
Honestly, $500.00 for a custom website build is way too low. Even if you’re talking about a simple business website with five pages. Even if you can easily build that website in your sleep, it’s still way too low.
On the other hand, $5,000.00 for the same website will demand a lot of extra service on your part.
What is the Standard Price for a Website Build?
$2,500.00 seems to be a good figure, in our experience, for a website build. This includes the following…
Five-page website (home, about, services, portfolio, contact)
Basic SEO features (title tags, meta tags, image alt text)
Reasonable amount of content you create (text, graphics, images)
One year’s of hosting
One year’s of minor changes, software updates, emergency support
Creating custom e-mail addresses, setting up inboxes or forwards
$500.00 for each additional year of maintenance is reasonable. This includes basic edits, perhaps adding one extra page, updating plugins, and being available for emergencies.
Don’t Charge Too Low for a Website
When clients see a low price for a website build, they immediately think that it’s a cheap website. They’re less likely to hire you because they don’t want something half-ass.
Remember that for $200.00 to $500.00 a year, they can build a website themselves on Wix.
Clients want to hire a website designer to get something that “looks great” and “performs well”. That’s why they’re willing to pay the bigger bucks.
They already expect to pay at least $2,000.00 for the initial build, and then a reasonable price for maintenance. So, go ahead and least price yourself that much.
Don’t Charge Too High
There really is no such thing as “too high of a price” when it comes to professional website design and development. I’ve found that clients are willing to pay more as long as they get everything they want.
However, if you decide to charge $5,000.00 for a standard 5-page business website, you’ll have to demonstrate why your work is worth that much more money. That’s tough to prove when there are a lot of other website designers to choose from.
If you keep your price either at, or below, your competition, then you can now compete on service. The more responsive you are, the more friendly you are, the more professional you act, will often become the deciding factor to hire you.
$5,000.00 is A LOT of money for a small business to pay. So, be prepared to demonstrate how and why your skills are worth that much.
How Much to Charge for an E-commerce Website?
$2,500.00 seems to be the price most client’s expect with an e-commerce build, which is no different than a standard business website. The only difference is that with an e-commerce website you’ll be expected to add a certain number of products into the product database.
Make sure to tell the client how many products you’ll be willing to create with the initial website build (10-20 products is reasonable).
Remember that each product will require multiple photos, categories, and a reasonable amount of description.
Your price should include teaching the client how to add/edit products.
How Much to Charge for E-commerce Add-ons?
Clients will eventually ask you for additional features with an e-commerce website. Make sure to price these separately from your initial website build…
POS Synchronization - This is connecting an e-commerce website to the POS system of a brick-n-mortar store. A POS stands for “point of sale” which is effectively a physical cash-register, but one that keeps track of product inventory. Platforms like Shopify and Magento have the ability to connect to a wide variety of POS systems. But this can require a lot more work, and you should charge extra. It’s not uncommon to charge an additional $500.00 for the intial set up, and then an extra $50.00 a month for on-going maintenance. On-going maintenance includes installing plugin updates and being available for emergency support.
Social Media Extensions - Today, there are plugins that will take a Shopify product and turn it into an Instagram post. Clients want these. There are now Shopify plugins that interface with TikTok, Pinterest, Twitter, and others. You should charge separately to add these plugins, for one because these are premium plugins that you will have to buy on behalf of your client, and two because they will add more on-going support on your end. An extra $25.00 to $50.00 a month is not unreasonable.
Mailing List for E-commerce - There are Shopify and Magento plugins that will automatically notify subscribers of new products you add, and new discounts you create. Clients will want these. Charge separately for these because they will require more of your time to manage. An extra $25.00 to $50.00 a month is not unreasonable.
WooCommerce, Shopify, or Magento for E-Commerce?
I highly recommend you build an e-commerce website on Shopify or Magento. Shopify and Magento is much more easy to manage than WooCommerce, and I can assure you that on-going management is where most of your time is going to be spent as a webmaster.
As for Shopify versus Magento, Shopify is our preferred choice due to pricing, a huge community of after-market support, and ease in management.
I don’t recommend WooCommerce because it’s seem to have so many compatibility issues with other WordPress plugins. It also requires an additional WooCommerce plugin to work with the right payment gateway. Lastly, a client will eventually want to set up a POS system, and will want that connected to the website. WooCommerce support for POS is complicated and buggy.
Building Websites for Existing Brick-n-Mortar Stores & Restaurants
If client already operates a brick-n-mortar store, or a restaurant, or even an office where customers visit, they will have a POS system in place.
A POS system (point of sale) is effectively a physical cash register, but one that is tied to a product database. This allows them to transact and automatically update the inventory count. Many POS systems will automatically place an order for more supplies when they run low.
When they ask you to build a website, they will very likely want that website to synchronize with their store’s POS.
Your first step is to evaluate their POS. Most POS systems have the ability to interface with websites.
Many POS systems have their own native website platforms. You build the website on their platform, and it will automatically sync to the POS. In this case, charge the standard rate ($2,500.00 for the initial year, then $500.00 per year).
Some POS systems offer an API. You’ll need to build your own custom script to send and receive data from the POS to display on the website. (This is where a $5,000.00 fee will come in, plus $500.00 a year maintenance)
Choctaw Websites has a more in-depth article on this topic, “How Best to Integrate a POS With a Website”
Building Websites That Have an Online Appointment Scheduler
Doctors, dentists, chiropractors, massage therapists often have an appointment scheduler on their website allowing patients to book an appointment themselves. This scheduler will display a calendar showing what days and times are busy, and what are currently available.
The scheduler will also perform transactions allowing the office to accept credit and debit card payments at the same time the appointment is booked.
WordPress websites can accomplish this with a large variety of scheduling plugins. However, the scheduler requires a separate credit card gateway, and these plugins often conflict with other plugins.
Square Appointments is very popular with doctors, dentists, chiropractors, and massage therapists. Square is a POS system that handles credit and debit card payments in the office. Square Appointments is a website builder that offers online-scheduling and ties it into the POS.
If a doctor, dentist, chiropractor, massage therapist, or similar business, hires you to build a website, I highly recommend using Square Appointments. It makes everything seamless, and very easy for you to manage.
The standard $2,500.00 fee is reasonable for the initial build for the first year, and then $500.00 annual fee for maintenance.
How Much to Charge for a Large Website Build
This is simply just a website with lots of pages, not necessarily one with lots of visitors.
Start with the standard charge of $2,500.00 for the initial build and one year of maintenance, but add another $500.00 for every additional 20 pages. After the first year, charge the basic annual maintenance of $500.00.
This is assuming they have the content created for these pages. Your job is to put the content on the pages, and ensure the Title and Meta tags are set, including the image alt-text.
You will also have to create a navigation system to browse these articles, including a search engine. Add another $500.00 for that. If you’re going to lease a search engine like Algolia, then make sure to price it high enough to cover your costs.
How Much to Charge for a High Traffic Website
Clients with a highly popular website are more concerned about security, privacy, and downtime. The following packages are all reasonable and expected by clients…
Charge them extra for your “Security Package”, which should include some kind of WordPress security plugin like WordFence or Sucuri. That package should also include frequent backups using a service that handles it automatically. This should also include some kind of antispam like Akismet, et al.
Charge them extra to put them on a faster server, or scalable server, that doesn’t lag under heavy loads.
Also recommend they buy your “CDN Add on” where you use a content delivery network like Cloudflare.
Make sure to factor in your costs to purchase these, and then double that figure as your charge.
What if a Client Wants You to Redesign What You Built a Couple Years Ago?
If a client comes back to you two or three years later, and wants a total redesign, you should consider it the same a new website build, but with some additional considerations…
Start with the standard price of $2,500.00 as with a new website build, which includes another one year of included maintenance.
Offer a $500.00 discount for being an existing customer (that brings the price down to $2,000.00)
Offer another $500.00 discount if you are allowed to reuse content on existing pages (that brings the price down to $1,500.00)
You will be allowed to bump the price back up, because the client will almost always want extra features that they didn’t have before. This could be faster performance, increased SEO, a blog to host articles, a homepage slider, an e-commerce store, or who knows what.
Make sure you tell the client they are already getting $500.00 to $1,000.00 in discounts for being an existing client, and for being able to reuse existing content, but that the price goes back up for the additional features.
All clients understand that they are asking a lot from you, especially after you already built them a new website a few years ago. Thus, they are usually understanding, particularly if you mention the discounts you are giving them.